Publications

We report discovery of an established population of the Asian swamp eel Amphipnous cuchia (Hamilton, 1822) in Bayou St. John, an urban waterway in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. This fish, commonly referred to as cuchia (kuchia), is a member of the family Synbranchidae and is native to southern and southeastern Asia. Recently-used synonyms include Monopterus cuchia and Ophichthys cuchia. We collecte

Anthropogenic environmental change has increased coral reef disturbance regimes in recent decades, altering the structure and function of many coral reefs globally. In this study, we used coral community survey data collected from 1996 to 2015 to evaluate coral calcification capacity (CCC) dynamics with respect to recorded pulse disturbances for 121 reef sites in the Main Hawaiian Islands and Mo'o

Snakehead fishes (family Channidae) are among the most maligned aquatic invasive species in the USA and some other countries where they have been introduced outside of their native range in Asia and Africa. Nevertheless, snakeheads continue to be widely exploited in the live‐food trade in aquaculture and wild‐capture fisheries, are highly sought by anglers, and are also popular in the aquarium tra

The warming climate presents a challenge to conservation of all threatened and endangered species but particularly to those that exhibit temperature-dependent sex determination such as sea turtles. Changes in temperature may result in changes in the sex ratio of the population which can directly affect reproductive rate, abundance and population dynamics. The NW Atlantic loggerhead turtle populati

Identifying and clearly communicating the drivers of ecosystem function is a crucially important goal for both basic and applied ecology. This has proven difficult because the putative causes (e.g., environment, species identity, biodiversity, and functional traits) are numerous and correlated. The problem is exacerbated by a lack of a formal framework for unambiguously relating theoretical langua

Along migration corridors, animals can face natural and anthropogenic threats that differ from those in breeding and non-breeding residence areas. Satellite telemetry can aid in describing the timing and location of these migrations. We use this tool with switching state-space modeling and line kernel density estimates to identify migration corridors of post-nesting adult female loggerhead sea tur

Five species of sea turtle rely on Florida’s coastal and nearshore habitats for nesting during the summer months and foraging throughout the year (Figure 1). - Loggerhead turtles, named for their large, block-shaped heads with strong jaw muscles for crushing benthic invertebrates, are the most common sea turtle species on Florida’s nesting beaches. They nest on beaches throughout much of the sta

Studies integrating mangrove in-situ observations and remote sensing analysis for specific sites often lack precise estimates of carbon stocks over time frames that include disturbance events. This study quantifies change in mangrove area from 1985 to 2018 with Landsat time series analysis, estimates above and belowground stored carbon using field data, and evaluates aboveground carbon stock chang

Much attention has been placed on the role that under-roadway culverts may have in inhibiting upstream fish movement because of altered hydrology and unsuitable conditions for accessing or swimming through the culvert. Other culvert effects related to habitat alterations or disturbance to macroinvertebrate communities have received relatively little attention. Entities responsible for culverts or

Aim Climate variability threatens to destabilize production in many ecosystems. Asynchronous species dynamics may buffer against such variability when a decrease in performance by some species is offset by an increase in performance of others. However, high climatic variability can eliminate species through stochastic extinctions or cause similar stress responses among species that reduce bufferin

It is hard to believe that many of the small “backyard birds” people see during spring and autumn can make migratory journeys that span thousands of kilometers. In fact, over two-thirds of all land birds (i.e., those not associated with aquatic habitats) and over half of the migratory species in North America move long distances to areas in Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean isla

Priority Geographic Area: The outer continental shelf and upper continental slope from Canada/U.S. border offshore Washington State to the Mendocino Fracture Zone (Northern California), entirely within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), from the outermost shelf to at least 2000 m water depth (Figure 1). Description of Priority Area: Since 2015, over a thousand water column gas plumes originat